Edward Samuel Goldstein (1944- ) of Newton, MA earned degrees from Hebrew College, Harvard University, New York University and the University of Michigan. In the mid-1970s he embarked on research toward a Ph.D. degree at Brandeis University; his intention was to write a dissertation on the history of the Jewish Labor Committee, 1934-1967, under the direction of Professors Ben Halpern and Marshall Sklare. The project employed the methodology of sociological historiography exemplified by the work of Professor Halpern and Israeli historian Jacob Katz. Goldstein described the dissertation as "an analytic history of the Jewish Labor Committee, involving questions of social and ideological change amongst Jews and policymaking in the American labor movement." While pursuing his Ph.D., he taught at Clark University and Anna Maria College.
Goldstein secured the cooperation of the Jewish Labor Committee and its then Executive Director, Emanuel Muravchik, and was given access to extensive files of records stored at the JLC office in New York City. He made photocopies of many items and acquired original documents which were duplicates. In addition, he accumulated a considerable amount of research material and notes derived from other sources, both archival and printed. These materials, along with related correspondence, several draft chapters and a paper presented at the 1978 meeting of the American Jewish Studies Association, comprise the bulk of this collection.
The official records of the Jewish Labor Committee were donated to the Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives in 1985. By this time, some of the documents consulted and copied by Goldstein in earlier years had been lost. Thus, his collection fills important gaps in JLC history, and further enriches the Library's holdings on the subject by adding Goldstein's own writings and notes, as well as research materials from non-JLC sources.
Goldstein left academic pursuits in 1980, with the dissertation unfinished. He was employed for many years as an executive in the telecommunications industry, and in 2004 served as divisional vice-president in the Eastern United States for Charter Communications, a major national broadband and cable television provider. The JLC research material remained, undisturbed, in his possession until it was presented to the Jewish Labor Committee in 2002.
From the guide to the Edward S. Goldstein: Jewish Labor Committee Research Files, 1933-1985, (Tamiment Library / Wagner Archives)
